The Screw - Part Two (Season 21 Episode 83 of 103): Part two of two. Jo Masters takes revenge on Cath Wilson. The Bill airs on Drama at 7:30 AM, Sunday 19 May. Part two of two. Jo Masters takes revenge on Cath Wilson
Bertie Carvel is unrecognisable from his last appearance at the Old Vic when he not only looked like Donald Trump in The 47th, he captured every nuance of speech, glance and gesture of the former president. He does, though, play a character with an equally monstrous ego, a man of utter self-absorption and fired with a passion for his own self-aggrandisement. This is a Henry Higgins with more than a touch of Aspergers – he's a tweedy version of Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock and his Watson is Michael Gould's charmingly avuncular Colonel Pickering. Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion (combined here with his 1938 screenplay) was always a comedy of manners that satirised its male characters and left all the good sense to its three main women. There is Higgins's mother (Sylvestra Le Touzel a fine portrayal of maternal exasperation), his housekeeper (Penny Layden) and, of course, his pupil, Eliza Doolittle. Patsy Ferran is an exuberant Eliza, playing the first act broadly
George Bernard Shaw s 1914 play Pygmalion was the inspiration for the beloved musical My Fair Lady. But this revival at the Old Vic may leave fans of the film choking on their cucumber sandwiches.
A tale of transformation, coersive control and eventual female empowerment performed by two of our best stage actors should be a guaranteed hit. However, Richard Jones' revival of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion fails to pack the expected punch.